The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Theophilus Cibber
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While he exercised his function at Waltham, the archdeacon of
Norwich engaged him to interest himself in favour of the church of
Wolverhampton, from which a patrimony was detained by a sacrilegious
conveyance. In the course of this prosecution, our author observes,
"that a marvellous light opened itself unexpectedly, by revealing a
counterfeit seal, in the manifestation of razures, and interpolations,
and misdates of unjustifiable evidences, that after many years suit,
Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, upon a full hearing, gave a decree in
favour of the church."
During Mr. Hall's residence at Waltham, he was thrice employed by his
Majesty in public service. His first public employment was to attend
the Earl of Carlisle, who went on an embassy to France, and during his
absence his Majesty conferred upon him the deanery of Worcester. Upon
his return, he attended the King in a journey to Scotland, where
he exerted himself in support of episcopacy, in opposition to the
established ministry there, who were Presbyterians. Having acquired
some name in polemical divinity, and being long accustomed to
disputations, the King made choice of him to go to the Netherlands,
and assist at the synod of Dort, in settling the controverted points
of faith, for which that reverend body were there convened. Hall has
been very lavish in his own praise, while he acted at the synod of
Dort; he has given many hints of the supernatural assistance he was
blessed with: he has informed us, that he was then in a languishing
state of health; that his rest was broken, and his nights sleepless;
but on the night preceding the occasion of his preaching a Latin
sermon to the synod, he was favoured with, refreshing sleep, which he
ascribes to the immediate care of providence. The states of Holland,
he says, "sent Daniel Heinsius the poet to visit him, and were so much
delighted with his comportment, that they presented him with a
rich medal of gold, as a monument of their respect for his poor
endeavours." Upon our author's returning home, he found the church
torn to pieces, by the fierce contentions which then subsisted
concerning the doctrines of Arminius: he saw this with concern, and
was sensible true religion, piety, and virtue, could never be promoted
by such altercation; and therefore with the little power of which he
was master, he endeavoured to effect a reconciliation between the
contending parties: he wrote what he calls a project of pacification,
which was presented to his Majesty, and would have had a very happy
influence, had not the enemies of Mr. Hall misrepresented the book,
and so far influenced the King, that a royal edict for a general
inhibition, buried it in silence. Hall after this contended with the
Roman Catholics, who upon the prospect of the Spanish match, on the
success of which they built their hopes, began to betray a great
degree of insolence, and proudly boast the pedigree of their church,
from the apostles themselves. They insisted, that as their church was
the first, so it was the best, and that no ordination was valid which
was not derived from it. Hall in answer to their assertions, made a
concession, which some of his Protestant brethren thought he had no
right to do; he acknowledged the priority of the Roman Church, but
denied its infallibility, and consequently that it was possible
another church might be more pure, and approach more to the apostolic
practice than the Romish. This controversy he managed so successfully,
that he was promoted to the see of Exeter; and as King James I. seldom
knew any bounds to his generosity, when he happened to take a person
into his favour, he soon after that removed him from Exeter, and gave
him the higher bishoprick of Norwich; which he enjoyed not without
some allay to his happiness, for the civil wars soon breaking out,
he underwent the same severities which were exercised against other
prelates, of which he has given an account in a piece prefixed to his
works, called, Hall's hard Measure; and from this we shall extract the
most material circumstances.
The insolence of some churchmen, and the superiority they assumed in
the civil government, during the distractions of Charles I. provoked
the House of Commons to take some measures to prevent their growing
power, which that pious monarch was too much disposed to favour. In
consequence of this, the leading members of the opposition petitioned
the King to remove the bishops from their seats in Parliament, and
degrade them to the station at Commons, which was warmly opposed by
the high church lords, and the bishops themselves, who protested
against whatever steps were taken during their restraint from
Parliament, as illegal, upon this principle, that as they were part of
the legislature, no law could pass during their absence, at least
if that absence was produced by violence, which Clarendon has fully
represented.
The prejudice against the episcopal government gaining ground,
petitions to remove the bishops were poured in from all parts of the
kingdom, and as the earl of Strafford was then so obnoxious to the
popular resentment, his cause and that of the bishops was reckoned by
the vulgar, synonimous, and both felt the resentment of an enraged
populace. To such a fury were the common people wrought up, that they
came in bodies, to the two Houses of Parliament, to crave justice,
both against the earl of Strafford, and the archbishop of Canterbury,
and, in short, the whole bench of spiritual Peers; the mob besieged
the two Houses, and threatened vengeance upon the bishops, whenever
they came out. This fury excited some motion to be made in the House
of Peers, to prevent such tumults for the future, which were sent down
to the House of Commons. The bishops, for their safety, were obliged
to continue in the Parliament House the greatest part of the night,
and at last made their escape by bye-ways and stratagems. They were
then convinced that it was no longer safe for them to attend the
Parliament, 'till some measures were taken to repress the insolence
of the mob, and in consequence of this, they met at the house of the
archbishop of York, and drew up a protest, against whatever steps
should be taken during their absence, occasioned by violence. This
protest, the bishops intended should first be given to the Secretary
of State, and by him to the King, and that his Majesty should cause it
to be read in the House of Peers; but in place of this, the bishops
were accused of high treason, brought before the bar of the House of
Peers, and sent to the Tower. During their confinement, their enemies
in the House of Commons, took occasion to bring in a bill for taking
away the votes of bishops in the House of Peers: in this bill lord
Falkland concurred, and it was supported by Mr. Hambden and Mr. Pym,
the oracles of the House of Commons, but met with great opposition
from Edward Hyde, afterwards earl of Clarendon, who was a friend to
the church, and could not bear to see their liberties infringed.
The bishops petitioned to have council assigned them, in which they
were indulged, in order to answer to the charge of high treason. A day
was appointed, the bishops were brought to the bar, but nothing was
effected; the House of Commons at last finding that there could be no
proof of high treason, dropt that charge, and were content to libel
them for a misdemeanor, in which they likewise but ill succeeded, for
the bishops were admitted to bail, and no prosecution was carried on
against them, even for a misdemeanor.
Being now at liberty, the greatest part of them retired to their
dioceses, 'till the storm which had threatened them should subside.
Bishop Hall repaired to Norwich, where he met, from the disaffected
party, a very cold reception; he continued preaching however in his
cathedral at Norwich, 'till the order of sequestration came down, when
he was desired to remove from his palace, while the sequestrators
seized upon all his estate, both real and personal, and appraized all
the goods which were in the palace. The bishop relates the following
instance of oppression which was inflicted on him; 'One morning (says
his lordship) before my servants were up, there came to my gates one
Wright, a London trooper, attended with others requiring entrance,
threatening if they were not admitted, to break open the gates, whom,
I found at first sight, struggling with one of my servants for a
pistol which he had in his hand; I demanded his business at that
unseasonable time; he told me he came to search for arms and
ammunition, of which I must be disarmed; I told him I had only two
muskets in the house, and no other military provision; he not resting
upon my word, searched round about the house, looked into the chests
and trunks, examined the vessels in the cellar; finding no other
warlike furniture, he asked me what horses I had, for his commission
was to take them also; I told him how poorly I was stored, and that my
age would not allow me to travel on foot; in conclusion, he took one
horse away.'
The committee of sequestration soon after proceeded to strip him of
all the revenue belonging to his see, and as he refused to take the
covenant, the magistrates of the city of Norwich, who were no
friends to episcopal jurisdiction, cited him before them, for giving
ordination unwarrantably, as they termed it: to this extraordinary
summons the bishop answered, that he would not betray the dignity
of his station by his personal appearance, to answer any complaints
before the Lord Mayor, for as he was a Peer of the realm, no
magistrate whatever had a right to take cognizance of his conduct, and
that he was only accountable to the House of Lords, of which he was
one. The bishop proceeds to enumerate the various insults he received
from the enraged populace; sometimes they searched his house for
malignants, at other times they threatened violence to his person; nor
did their resentment terminate here; they exercised their fury in
the cathedral, tore down the altar, broke the organ in pieces, and
committed a kind of sacrilegious devastation in the church; they burnt
the service books in the market-place, filled the cathedral with
musketeers, who behaved in it with as much indecency, as if it had
been an alehouse; they forced the bishop out of his palace, and
employed that in the same manner. These are the most material
hardships which, according to the bishop's own account, happened to
him, which he seems to have born with patience and fortitude, and may
serve to shew the violence of party rage, and that religion is often
made a pretence for committing the most outrageous insolence, and
horrid cruelty. It has been already observed, that Hall seems to have
been of an enthusiastic turn of mind, which seldom consists with any
brilliance of genius; and in this case it holds true, for in his
sermons extant, there is an imbecility, which can flow from no other
cause than want of parts. In poetry however he seems to have greater
power, which will appear when we consider him in that light.
It cannot positively be determined on what year bishop Hall died; he
published that work of his called Hard Measure, in the year 1647, at
which time he was seventy-three years of age, and in all probability
did not long survive it.
His ecclesiastical works are,
A Sermon, preached before King James at Hampton-Court, 1624.
Christian Liberty, set forth in a Sermon at Whitehall, 1628.
Divine Light and Reflections, in a Sermon at Whitehall, 1640.
A Sermon, preached at the Cathedral of Exeter, upon the Pacification
between the two Kingdoms, 1641.
The Mischief of Faction, and the Remedy of it, a Sermon, at Whitehall
on the second Sunday in Lent, 1641.
A Sermon, preached at the Tower, 1641.
A Sermon, preached on Whitsunday in Norwich, printed 1644.
A Sermon, preached on Whitsunday at Higham, printed 1652.
A Sermon, preached on Easter day at Higham, 1648.
The Mourner in Sion.
A Sermon, preached at Higham, printed 1655.
The Women's Veil, or a Discourse concerning the Necessity or
Expedience of the close Covering the Heads of Women.
Holy Decency in the Worship of God.
Good Security, a Discourse of the Christian's Assurance.
A Plain and Familiar Explication of Christ's Presence, in the
Sacrament of his Body and Blood.
A Letter for the Observation of the Feast of Christ's Nativity.
A Letter to Mr. William Struthers, one of the Preachers at Edinburgh.
Epistola D. Baltasari Willio. S.T.D.
Epistola D. Lud. Crocio. S.T.D.
Reverendissimo Marco Antonio de L'om. Archiep. Spalatensi.
Epistola decessus sui ad Romam dissuasiva.
A Modest Offer.
Certain Irrefragable Propositions, worthy of serious Consideration.
The Way of Peace in the Five Busy Articles, commonly known by the name
of Arminius.
A Letter concerning the Fall Away from Grace.
A Letter concerning Religion.
A Letter concerning the frequent Injection of Temptations.
A Consolatory Letter to one under Censure.
A Short Answer to the Nine Arguments which are brought against the
Bishops sitting in Parliament.
For Episcopacy and Liturgy.
A Speech in Parliament.
A Speech in Parliament, in Defence of the Canons made in Convocation.
A Speech in Parliament, concerning the Power of Bishops in secular
things.
The Anthems for the Cathedral of Exeter.
All these are printed in 4to, and were published 1660. There are also
other Works of this author. An Edition of the whole has been printed
in three Vols. folio.
Besides these works, Bishop Hall is author of Satires in Six Books,
lately reprinted under the title of Virgidemiarum, of which we cannot
give a better account than in the words of the ingenious authors of
the Monthly Review, by which Bishop Hall's genius for that kind of
poetical writing will fully appear.
He published these Satires in the twenty third year of his age, and
was, as he himself asserts in the Prologue, the first satirist in the
English language.
I first adventure, follow me who list,
And be the second English satyrist.
And, if we consider the difficulty of introducing so nice a poem as
satire into a nation, we must allow it required the assistance of no
common and ordinary genius. The Italians had their Ariosto, and
the French their Regnier, who might have served him as models for
imitation; but he copies after the ancients, and chiefly Juvenal and
Persius; though he wants not many strokes of elegance and delicacy,
which shew him perfectly acquainted with the manner of Horace. Among
the several discouragements which attended his attempt in that kind,
he mentions one peculiar to the language and nature of the English
versification, which would appear in the translation of one of
Persius's Satires: The difficulty and dissonance whereof, says he,
shall make good my assertion; besides the plain experience thereof
in the Satires of Ariosto; save which, and one base French satire, I
could never attain the view of any for my direction. Yet we may pay
him almost the same compliment which was given of old to Homer and
Archilochus: for the improvements which have been made by succeeding
poets bear no manner of proportion to the distance of time between him
and them. The verses of bishop Hall are in general extremely musical
and flowing, and are greatly preferable to Dr. Donne's, as being of
a much smoother cadence; neither shall we find him deficient, if
compared with his successor, in point of thought and wit; but he
exceeds him with respect to his characters, which are more numerous,
and wrought up with greater art and strength of colouring. Many of his
lines would do honour to the most ingenious of our modern poets;
and some of them have thought it worth their labour to imitate him,
especially Mr. Oldham. Bishop Hall was not only our first satyrist,
but was the first who brought epistolary writing to the view of the
public; which was common in that age to other parts of Europe, but not
practised in England, till he published his own epistles. It may be
proper to take notice, that the Virgidemiarum are not printed with his
other writings, and that an account of them is omitted by him, through
his extreme modesty, in the Specialities of his Life, prefixed to the
third volume of his works in folio.
The author's postscript to his satires is prefixed by the editor in
the room of a preface, and without any apparent impropriety. It is not
without some signatures of the bishop's good sense and taste; and,
making a just allowance for the use of a few obsolete terms, and
the puerile custom of that age in making affected repetitions and
reiterations of the same word within the compass of a period, it would
read like no bad prose at present. He had undoubtedly an excellent
ear, and we must conclude he must have succeeded considerably in
erotic or pastoral poetry, from the following stanza's, in his
Defiance to Envy, which may be considered as an exordium to his
poetical writings.
Witnesse, ye muses, how I wilful sung
These heady rhimes, withouten second care;
And wish'd them worse my guilty thoughts among;
The ruder satire should go ragg'd and bare,
And shew his rougher and his hairy hide,
Tho' mine be smooth, and deck'd in carelesse pride.
Would we but breathe within a wax-bound quill,
Pan's seven-fold pipe, some plaintive pastoral;
To teach each hollow grove, and shrubby hill,
Each murmuring brook, each solitary vale
To found our love, and to our song accord,
Wearying Echo with one changelesse word.
Or lift us make two striving shepherds sing,
With costly wagers for the victory,
Under Menalcas judge; while one doth bring
A carven bowl well wrought of beechen tree,
Praising it by the story; or the frame,
Or want of use, or skilful maker's name.
Another layeth a well-marked lamb,
Or spotted kid, or some more forward steere,
And from the paile doth praise their fertile dam;
So do they strive in doubt, in hope, in feare,
Awaiting for their trusty empire's doome,
Faulted as false by him that's overcome.
Whether so me lift my lovely thought to sing,
Come dance ye nimble Dryads by my side,
Ye gentle wood-nymphs come; and with you bring
The willing fawns that mought their music guide.
Come nymphs and fawns, that haunts those shady groves,
While I report my fortunes or my loves.
The first three books of satires are termed by the author Toothless
satires, and the three last Biting satires. He has an animated idea
of good poetry, and a just contempt of poetasters in the different
species of it. He says of himself, in the first satire.
Nor can I crouch, and writhe my fawning tayle,
To some great Patron for my best avayle.
Such hunger-starven trencher-poetrie,
Or let it never live, or timely die.
He frequently avows his admiration of Spenser, whose cotemporary he
was. His first book, consisting of nine satires, appears in a manner
entirely levelled at low and abject poetasters. Several satires of the
second book reprehend the contempt of the rich, for men of science and
genius. We shall transcribe the sixth, being short, and void of all
obscurity.
A gentle squire would gladly entertaine
Into his house some trencher-chaplaine;
Some willing man that might instruct his sons,
And that would stand to good conditions.
First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed,
While his young maister lieth o'er his head.
Second, that he do on no default,
Ever presume to sit above the salt.
Third, that he never change his trencher twise.
Fourth, that he use all common courtesies;
Sit bare at meales, and one halfe raise and wait.
Last, that he never his young maister beat,
But he must ask his mother to define,
How manie jerkes she would his breech should line.
All these observed, he could contented bee,
To give five markes and winter liverie.
The seventh and last of this book is a very just and humorous satire
against judicial astrology, which was probably in as high credit then,
as witchcraft was in the succeeding reign.
The first satire of the third book is a strong contrast of the
temperance and simplicity of former ages, with the luxury and
effeminacy of his own tines, which a reflecting reader would be apt to
think no better than the present. We find the good bishop supposes our
ancestors as poorly fed as Virgil's and Horace's rustics. He says,
with sufficient energy,
Thy grandsire's words favour'd of thrifty leekes,
Or manly garlicke; but thy furnace reekes
Hot steams of wine; and can a-loose descrie
The drunken draughts of sweet autumnitie.
The second is a short satire on erecting stately monuments to
worthless men. The following advice is nobly moral, the subsequent
sarcasm just and well expressed.
Thy monument make thou thy living deeds;
No other tomb than that true virtue needs.
What! had he nought whereby he might be knowne
But costly pilements of some curious stone?
The matter nature's, and the workman's frame;
His purse's cost: where then is Osmond's name?
Deserv'dst thou ill? well were thy name and thee,
Wert thou inditched in great secrecie.
The third gives an account of a citizen's feast, to which he was
invited, as he says,
With hollow words, and [2] overly request.
and whom he disappointed by accepting his invitation at once, and not
Maydening it; no insignificant term as he applies it: for, as he says,
Who looks for double biddings to a feast,
May dine at home for an importune guest.
After a sumptuous bill of fare, our author compares the great plenty
of it to our present notion of a miser's feast--saying,
Come there no more; for so meant all that cost;
Never hence take me for thy second host.
The fourth is levelled at Ostentation in devotion, or in dress. The
fifth represents the sad plight of a courtier, whose Perewinke, as
he terms it, the wind had blown off by unbonnetting in a salute, and
exposed his waxen crown or scalp. 'Tis probable this might be about
the time of their introduction into dress here. The sixth, which is a
fragment, contains a hyperbolical relation of a thirsty foul, called
Gullion, who drunk Acheron dry in his passage over it, and grounded
Charon's boat, but floated it again, by as liberal a stream of urine.
It concludes with the following sarcastical, yet wholesome irony.
Drinke on drie foule, and pledge Sir Gullion:
Drinke to all healths, but drink not to thyne owne.
The seventh and last is a humorous description of a famished beau, who
had dined only with duke Humfrey, and who was strangely adorned with
exotic dress.
To these three satires he adds the following conclusion.
Thus have I writ, in smoother cedar tree,
So gentle Satires, penn'd so easily.
Henceforth I write in crabbed oak-tree rynde,
Search they that mean the secret meaning find.
Hold out ye guilty and ye galled hides,
And meet my far-fetched stripes with waiting sides.
In his biting satires he breathes still more of the spirit and
stile of Juvenal, his third of this book being an imitation of that
satirist's eighth, on Family-madness and Pride of Descent; the
beginning of which is not translated amiss by our author. The
principal object of his fourth satire, Gallio, would correspond with
a modern Fribble, but that he supposes him capable of hunting and
hawking, which are exercises rather too coarse and indelicate for
ours: this may intimate perhaps, that the reign of the great Elizabeth
had no character quite so unmanly as our age. In advising him to wed,
however, we have no bad portrait of the Petit Maitre.
Hye thee, and give the world yet one dwarfe more,
Such as it got when thou thy selfe was bore.
His fifth satire contrasts the extremes of Prodigality and Avarice;
and by a few initials, which are skabbarded, it looks as if he had
some individuals in view; though he has disclaimed such an intention
in his postscript (now the preface) p. 6. lin. 25, &c. His sixth sets
out very much like the first satire of Horace's first book, on the
Dissatisfaction and Caprice of mankind--Qui fit Mecaenas; and, after
a just and lively-description of our different pursuits in life, he
concludes with the following preference of a college one, which, we
find in the Specialities of his life, he was greatly devoted to in his
youth. The lines, which are far from inelegant, seem indeed to come
from his heart, and make him appear as an exception to that too
general human discontent, which was the subject of this satire.
'Mongst all these stirs of discontented strife,
Oh let me lead an academick life;
To know much, and to think we nothing know;
Nothing to have, yet think we have enowe;
In skill to want, and wanting seek for more;
In weele nor want, nor wish for greater store.
Envy, ye monarchs, with your proad excesse,
At our low sayle, and our high happinesse.
The last satire of this book is a severe one on the clergy of the
church of Rome. He terms it POMH-PYMH, by which we suppose he intended
to brand Roma, as the Sink of Superstition. He observes, if Juvenal,
whom he calls Aquine's carping spright, were now alive, among other
surprising alterations at Rome,